Balneor's Fun Level Pack

[Balneor]

[Note : This compilation will now stop receiving major updates. Please see reply #26, page 2.]

Hey. This thread is a result of me having gone through the entirety of Distractionware's level section, and to celebrate that I decided to make my very own compilation of all the funs levels I've encountered since getting back to this game a few months ago. While it is true I'm missing out on a lot of inaccessible, lost-through-time content, this custom pack (of 300+ levels ! ) should be large enough for anyone interested in VVVVVV to try their hands at these, made by the community :

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/md5e9e6528oyzkq/AADB17pjI2NQmv33_wTe9mSVa?dl=0

A few precisions upon browsing the compilation : You'll notice that most file names are extended to have key-words inside parentheses, like this one example : ("Trash", "impossible", ...). Don't pay too much attention to these, as they mostly were written to help me manage my custom collection... and actually, there's no such labels in here
...except for the terms that follow :

"Play only once", which usually is written when a level requires a lot of focus, such as mazes. I personally wouldn't want to play these labelled levels more than once, but they're still pretty good nonetheless.
"Bugged crewmate/trinket", which indicate some crewmate or trinkets are not present inside the level due to a bug within it, making completion impossible even though it should not.
"+" (Term that has since been renamed to "plus"), which means it requires additionnal files, most importantly graphics. They're included inside a folder with a name related to it. For music files though, I've added a link to get them, as they have far bigger sizes than anything else in this compilation, and wouldn't be convenient upon downloading (The entire comp with these files added would have made around a 180 MB of size, compared to 22 here).
"Modified", which means that I've taken the initiative of modifying them. It generally concerns gameplay tweaks, glitches fixes, repeating scripts fixes, big-enough changes that I need to mention it (Some levels may also be modified while still not having this term, but in that case the level changes are almost unnoticeable). The in-game level name should be completed with "mod".
"Unfinished", which means that this particular level was a demo at one point, and never got finished. You should generally expect an abrupt ending of progression. Some of them are big and good enough to be included, though.

Most level author's forum names were included in the description of levels if you ever want to look for them (And it will sometimes be named inside parentheses). So it should generally be possible to find back the original custom file or person by doing a quick search in this place, but I don't guarantee it all the time. A few of the levels here were acquired from other people's compilations from the past, but some of them were left unnamed, so I have no idea as to who they may belong, and you'll excuse me for that.

Final words here. While I tried to be somewhat professional with how everything is presented and for the compilation itself, it's obviously far from perfect, and heavily depends on my tastes. There may be big fun/difficulty gaps between the chosen levels, and some of them might just be at the border of frustration, that they may displease some. I will try and arrange that in the future.
But if you're simply looking for a way to lenghten your VVVVVV experience, then this hundred-of-hours-worth-of-play compilation is for you.

[As of now the entire compilation contains 305 levels.]
[30/October/19 : Fixed Dimension IJK from being impossible to beat (pack 2). Modified a terminal in Puzzle Pen (pack 3).]
[7/December/19 : Greatly modified Fragments v0.2 (pack 2).]

[Info Teddy]

TIME TO TAS

edit: HOLY SHIT WHY DID YOU PUT A DASH IN FRONT OF THE FILENAME

Code (cat failure) Select Expand

~/v/levels/balneor_pack1/(CCCCCCCCCC remake) Music Dlink  cat -CCCCCCCCCC\ Retold-\ by\ Whirligig.url
cat: invalid option -- 'C'
Try 'cat --help' for more information.
✘  ~/v/levels/balneor_pack1/(CCCCCCCCCC remake) Music Dlink  cat '-CCCCCCCCCC Retold- by Whirligig.url'
cat: invalid option -- 'C'
Try 'cat --help' for more information.
✘  ~/v/levels/balneor_pack1/(CCCCCCCCCC remake) Music Dlink  cat '\-CCCCCCCCCC Retold- by Whirligig.url'
cat: '\-CCCCCCCCCC Retold- by Whirligig.url': No such file or directory
✘  ~/v/levels/balneor_pack1/(CCCCCCCCCC remake) Music Dlink  ls                                         
'-CCCCCCCCCC Retold- by Whirligig.url'
~/v/levels/balneor_pack1/(CCCCCCCCCC remake) Music Dlink  cat "-CCCCCCCCCC Retold- by Whirligig.url"
cat: invalid option -- 'C'
Try 'cat --help' for more information.
✘  ~/v/levels/balneor_pack1/(CCCCCCCCCC remake) Music Dlink  cat \-CCCCCCCCCC\ Retold-\ by\ Whirligig.url
cat: invalid option -- 'C'
Try 'cat --help' for more information.
✘  ~/v/levels/balneor_pack1/(CCCCCCCCCC remake) Music Dlink  cat -\CCCCCCCCCC\ Retold-\ by\ Whirligig.url
cat: invalid option -- 'C'
Try 'cat --help' for more information.

edit1: also hate how for some music download links you just link to the thread which only has a link to the entire level. what's the point of including the level if you're going to ask people to redownload all of the level anyway?

edit2: oh and to put the icing on the cake, the link for unshackled's thread doesn't actually point to the op and points to some random unrelated post. that's really convenient

[Balneor]

Not my fault if the Unshackled download page found by doing a word search here, would forcefully redirect to its last post when opened. But I know how to fix it so it isn't a big deal.

I don't know why a dash in a file name would be a problem, but aside that it seems like an oversight, as I would probably have removed it for name clarification.

For the music part, I don't think the deal is as huge as you make it out to be. Sure, you'll have to re-download unnecessary files in-between, but they'll mostly be of an infinitely short size compared to the music ones, and you can delete them in like 2 secs. However, a better alternative that I can do instead of including a link for just the music, is simply drop the link to the level's download thread, so that you can get everything in one go and store everything afterwards. Each level with music assets would need a preliminary download page link though, which I'm not sure is 100% the case there, as some levels don't have their own topics here and are only downloadable on the Discord's round 1 & 2 archive.

[Sasha_Waters]

Damn, I didn't make the cut :/

[Balneor]

That's unfortunately the case, but my last, recent playthrough of it wasn't exactly a fun time. I'll add that even if I can definitely beat it, I'm not sure if the majority of players will even have the patience to get through it, even for a few of its rooms (Just look at the other people's responses in your level topic, you'll see what I mean). Jumbo will make them all rage-quit forever. In any cases sorry, but I didn't enjoy it enough for it to be worth putting here.

While I'm at it, I fixed a few small issues within the compilations themselves (Upgraded to v1.1), they should be avayable to download again pretty soon. From now on, music files will be downloadable in a independent folder. They only concern 5 levels, so you can skip them if they are too voluminous or long to get (I'd recommend not to though), and also, keep their folders for storage.

[uugr]

You labeled alek's contest level as mine

Nice to see all of my/cheesefactory's levels in there! Especially Courage Test, which nobody else has literally ever mentioned or talked about, despite it being one of my personal favorites. Also good to see a bunch of Terry's featured levels that weren't included with the game (especially DSS Ideal X, which I loved). I think I've played... maybe 10% of these? I definitely recognize some of them, but many more I haven't ever seen before. I might try some of these, but there are a few sections of this (very impressive) level list that make me wonder a bit of its objective merit.

> First of all, the fact that Nova is in there, totally unmodified, makes me think you're either a much better VVVVVV player than I or you haven't actually beaten all of these yourself. I barely got through a section and a half, and looking through the video playthrough, it seems to only get harder from there. Nova is NASTY, and it worries me that some other levels on that list might have similar difficulty levels.

> There's... a lot of pattoo levels in here. Do we really need all these pattoo levels? They're all virtually indistinguishable, and given how many forum levels tend to be... similar, I somewhat worry there will be some very nonunique levels to sift through in this compilation.

> The original Unnamed Indefinitely but neither of the update contest versions? Really? The old UI isn't even much good at all, which was kind of the point of building a contest around it. There are a couple other levels on here that I know aren't good (SSXCIV springs to mind), but no accounting for taste I guess.

Other than that, I'm very impressed you pushed your way through the entire Distractionware back catalog. I've had the idea to do the same in the back of my head for a while, but I never really thought it would be feasible, much less that someone else would do it first! Guess there's no point in me doing it now... oh well, I'll go through as much of this compilation as I can stomach and report back.

[pixelator]

oh well, I'll go through as much of this compilation as I can stomach and report back.

no stop don't play dim. pixel

[moth 🦋]

thanks for including mine! (i mean, its got a minor bug but oh well) im glad people like it enough to include it in something like this :p

[Balneor]

You labeled alek's contest level as mine

Thanks for the warning, as otherwise it would probably have been an eternal oversight.

> First of all, the fact that Nova is in there, totally unmodified, makes me think you're either a much better VVVVVV player than I or you haven't actually beaten all of these yourself. I barely got through a section and a half, and looking through the video playthrough, it seems to only get harder from there. Nova is NASTY, and it worries me that some other levels on that list might have similar difficulty levels.

My comp is rightfully not objective as mentionned in the OP, but all of the levels listed here at least have some levels of fun, above-average qualities (Or in any cases, that I enjoyed them to some degree, which is the basis of my comp) enough that they were choosen. And I've correctly beaten every single one of those levels, even Nova (Twice actually !), so the difficulty might very well be highly inconsistent, but once again, as mentionned in the OP.. Although I'll only say that nothing put here is even close as Nova's difficulty (Mostly because there doesn't exist anything else like it).
While I could have added another term designating hard levels for convenience sake, I didn't care to put them because it would have been pointless to me in the past, and it'd currently be pretty time-consuming to add those.

> There's... a lot of pattoo levels in here. Do we really need all these pattoo levels? They're all virtually indistinguishable, and given how many forum levels tend to be... similar, I somewhat worry there will be some very nonunique levels to sift through in this compilation.

About those Pattoo1234 levels, I figured some people would wonder - most of his levels aren't (And will never be) included, only those few I deemed okay-enough. They're more of a break, cakewalk type of levels, which is good to play once in a while. If you're looking for objectively good, innovative and original content, I'm afraid this comp won't exactly do, as it is rather gameplay focused.

> The original Unnamed Indefinitely but neither of the update contest versions? Really? The old UI isn't even much good at all, which was kind of the point of building a contest around it. There are a couple other levels on here that I know aren't good (SSXCIV springs to mind), but no accounting for taste I guess.

I don't remember where I got Unnamed Indefinitely, neither know how to get its updated versions, but it'd surely be interesting to check out (Might replace the current version with this one if all goes well).

Anyways keep those replies coming, they really help a ton

[Bruce Michez]

I'm pleased that you included the whole Bracketed trilogy.  However, it appears that the version of [X] you've included is the old version.  This had a warning about what turned out to be a non-existent glitch.

[Balneor]

Alright, done. I'll fix every levels that came out before the date of this topic, no matter their current state. For those who will eventually appear after that date, I have another idea where they (Or at least the ones I'll enjoy as always) would be put inside a 5th, 2019 edition separate level pack (That if I still am interested and have the time).

[Info Teddy]

when do i tas if the level pack keeps upd8ing

[KingCaptain]

Pretty cool to see YYYYYY in the compilation, especially since I think that I could've done a much better job on it. Thanks for playing and including it!

[uugr]

Played through all of the levels in part 1 of this compilation (#-D), and wrote down my times, whether I'd done them before, and my thoughts on each after playing. Under the spoiler are all of those, plus a little color-coding for people intending to play this compilation to see which levels are the best, which are bad, and which ones are really utterly shitty.

Levels in green are good, levels in orange aren't much good and Balneor should consider removing, levels in red are absolute shit and should 100% definitely be removed. Anything in blue is a problem with the level that Balneor should fix in a later update. Levels with no color are generally unexceptional, they range from "fairly good but nothing crazy" to "barely passable" - see comments for details on those.

(Sorry about the length, distractionware can't do spoiler tags.)

000000 by alek - 10ish minutes. Played before. Fun level, nice use of enemies and graphics but very short and sadly unfinished.
100 Challenges by som1sezhi (rip) - About 1hr30mins. Partially played before. Contains some of the best design of any VVVVVV level but it's also hard as balls, especially later. Needs an ending crewmate. Also, the last few levels took up 1 / 3 of my level time - could probably be nerfed.
100000 "by pattoo1234" - 15ish minutes. Literally just shitty 333333. What the fuck pattoo. Why is this here?
25 Rooms by Yoshi13 - 5ish minutes. Fun and easy, amusing dialogue. Nothing special, but I like it.
333333 Hard HiFi by Sendy - 50ish minutes. Did the nonhifi hard + hifi easy before. Fuckin' love 333333, and this is no exception.
336699 by TheEnderCast - 5ish minutes. Really simple and kinda bad. 90% of my gameplay time was one obnoxious DTTHW that kinda ruined the level, should be nerfed. (Starts at "you hate me").
3x3 Spiral by Lollipop - 2ish minutes. Easy and simple, incredibly basic design. Doesn't really deserve to be on here.
4 People, 4 Paths by Pinkamena Diane Pie - 10ish minutes. Looks and feels like someone's first level but other than a couple of broken trinkets, a lot of the challenges are surprisingly meritorious. Decent level.
400 Rooms by Multiple Authors (who should be ashamed of themselves) - 15ish minutes. "ey jim" "yeh steve" "yannow dat vvvvvv game" "yeh steve i do" "well jim, yannow how most levels are designed to feel good and fun" "yeh" "well what if we made a level that looks and plays as shitty as possible to make as unfun an experience as we can" "yer a fuckin genius steve"
5 Liner by RikkianGD - 2ish minutes. Played before. Simple and easy, but enjoyable enough.
5 Rooms by ? - 25ish minutes. Top 10 times a good level ruined itself by trying to make the ending too hard. Please, PLEASE do something about that god damn ending.
5x5 Spiral by Lollipop - 8ish minutes. Even shittier than 3x3, this level has basically no merit. Definitely doesn't deserve to be on here.
7 Areas by Lollipop and Veec7 - 35ish minutes. Long and dull. zzzzzz
8888888 by Lenare - Played 45ish minutes before I hit a gravitron fling without saving and gave up. Playing this level was a waste of my time.
[Hacked] by ? - 5ish minutes. Reminds me a bit of Line Wrap, but not quite as good. Still, it's a lot of fun.
[/] by Bruce Michez - About 1 hour. Played before. I don't need to tell anyone else how good this level is, it's one of the staples of the community.
[II] Bruce Michez - About 1hr15mins. This one's even better than the original! Aaaaah so goooood.
[X] Bruce Michez - About 1hr. Not as good as the first two (too much overworld) but still superb.
A Big Challenge by nPOW11 - 5ish minutes. why the actual fuck is this on here, it literally has no redeeming qualities. wtf
A Lab by AYellowPerson - 7ish minutes. A bunch of annoying precision challenges and then it's over. Boo.
A Linear Level by WF - 10ish minutes. Someone's first level. Get this outta here.
A No Story Dimension by DeadlyGoomba - 5ish minutes. Played before. IS fails to make this level interesting. Needs an ending, or you could just remove the level from the compilation.
A Quick Trip by Lollipop - 20ish minutes. Better than Lollipop's others, I guess. Still shitty and boring. Appreciate the modification, but the fact that this level needed it at all kinda says something about how bad a designer Lollipop is.
A Trip to Nowhere by Bearboy - 4ish minutes. Someone else's first level. Seriously, get this outta here.
AAAAAA by Mr_YTP - 3ish minutes. Not as good as later alphabet levels but still good. Always room for some mrytp as a bit of respite through all these levels.
Abandoned Space Station "by pattoo1234" - 15ish minutes. Honestly I get what pattoo was going for here and it's kind of neat, but I don't want to encourage this kind of behavior from him so I'm marking it orange anyway.
Abducted Once More by Pinkamena Diane Pie and SJMistery - 25ish minutes. Story has a kind of a "so bad it's good" charm but that doesn't excuse the terrible gameplay. Also, bad design "ironically" is still bad design.
Adventure by Mysterio - 20ish minutes. Feels like it was made in a day. Definitely not playtested. Thumbs waaaay down.
AdVVVVVVenture! By Kley - 5ish minutes. Dunno why I keep expecting more of these, at this point "someone's incredibly basic first level" is just kinda the norm.
All Alone by Mysterio - 5ish minutes. Easily the worst of the bunch so far, which is actually kinda impressive for a 3x3 map. I get that this is for people who just want more VVVVVV regardless of quality, but I can't imagine anyone desperate enough to do this piece of garbage.
Alphabet City by Ciolf - 20ish minutes. Gimmick is neat and dialogue is fun enough but gameplay is sadly lacking for the most part.
An Honest Mistake by Chap - hell no
Another Dimension by ZUXi03 - 30ish minutes, 18/20 trinkets. Aside from the comical amount of padding, this level is harmless.
Apathy by robloxfan1999 - 5ish minutes. Get it, it's funny because the designer felt "apathy" about making his level so it came out really terrible.
Arkive's Tutorial by Arkive86 (duh) - 4ish minutes. I mean, it's a decent respite after all those hard levels, but this level kind of has no reason to exist?
Ascension by Pyrite - 2ish minutes. flurp
Ascent from the Dungeon by weee50 - 5ish minutes. Mostly unexceptional, but still better than the majority I've done so far, as weee actually kinda knows what he's doing.
Ascost by Sergione - 10ish minutes. Surprisingly fun and well made. I like it. Ending is cool but the last bit of IS is broken, needs a fix.
B0unc3 by FCreature - 3ish minutes. Wow, this is... charmingly bad.
Back to VVVVVV by FIQ - about 1hr30mins. Played before. I get that it's an important milestone in VVVVVV history but it's just not *good*.
BBBBBB by Mr_YTP - 4ish minutes. Ahhh mrytp, a sour ending and bullshit trinket won't change how much I love your levels. Not your finest work, but still a good time.
Beginner Level by Chip - 2ish minutes. Well it performs as advertised, I guess. Not interesting.
Blocky by Veec7 - 5ish minutes. Can't deny it's visually pleasing and fun to play. Good level.
Blue's Adventure by Frans Hoorn - 10ish minutes. Heh, I love this one. Where is this dude's Oscar, I cried so hard
Bounce Mania by Robert - 10ish minutes. Ehhhh, it's mildly enjoyable I guess. Unremarkable.
Building H by Veec7 - About 1 minute. As simple as they come, and incredibly tiny. Don't see why it's in here but it's harmless.
Burly Fortress by Joseph Cardle - About 1 minute. Manages to pack a lot of bad design into such a small space. It's almost impressive. Except it's not, it's terrible.
CCCCCC (1) by MrXlix - 6ish minutes. Weird (bad kind of weird) dialogue and rather dull/easy gameplay. It's not AWFUL but it's not, like, good.
CCCCCC (2) by Mr_YTP - 3ish minutes. Played before. First mrytp I ever did. Love this one.
CCCCCCCCCC Retold by Whirligig - 45ish minutes. Played before; featured by Terry. One of the gems of old, great gameplay and a nicely building story, even if a couple rooms are waaaay too hard. A+
Challenges of Death by Bearboy - 5ish minutes. D- level. Bordering on red.
Cloning Technology by alek - 15ish minutes. It's no Unshackled but alek is still a solid level designer. Fun to play.
Complex Conveyors by Lollipop - About 1 minute. Actually kinda neat, but I'm not sure I'd call it worth featuring on here. Kind of both orange and green at the same time.
Computer Battle by CreepiX - 5ish minutes. This is a fantastic concept, but the actual design is frustrating and finicky. It's cool but please make it easier/less precise.
Computer Crisis by tos tur - 15ish minutes. Poorly made and buggy. Basically the previous level but worse.
Conveyor Vun by Nicholashin - 10ish minutes. Had to use the editor multiple times. "i fucking despise this atrocious piece of shit" is the thing I wrote immediately after finishing it, so uh, that's not a good sign.
Core Retrieval by uugr - 10ish minutes. Played before (obviously). Yeah this level is a real piece of trash, whoever made it is a dumb loser.
Crash Landing by Mysterio - 3ish minutes. Played before. Incredibly unpolished and basic. I'd be ok with a modified version of this level on here, but in its current state it's just... waaaay too buggy and ugly looking.
Crashed! by QwertymanO07 - Uff-da, this level is good! A shame it crashed partway through and the rest is heavily unfinished. I'd at least ask for bugfixes and an available ending, just so I don't have to leave it unfinished.
Cyberspace by damn it all to hell - 2ish minutes. IDK what this level's deal is or why it's reusing main game rooms, but it's not very good. It's not terrible, but there's really not much substance to it.
Dark Lab by cheesefactory - 40ish minutes. Partially played before. Hoo boy. I'd actually never all-trinketsed this before, and DAMN is it tricky. Easily the hardest level in this section, and quite possibly the second hardest VVVVVV level ever made without fake difficulty (first being Nova, of course). That being said, it's REALLY good. Cheesefactory sure as hell knew what he was doing. rip
DDDDDD by Mr_YTP - 4ish minutes. Played before. What better way to unwind after the horrors of Dark Lab than with a bit of mrytp? This is a good one, got some clever ideas. I love how you get at least one consistent good level per letter, really makes this compilation tolerable. Thanks mrytp
DDDDDDimension! By Lollipop - 25ish minutes. Boring, repetitive design mixed with obnoxious out of sync enemies/pointless backtracking/checkpoint starvation, and lovingly slathered with IS that's barely passable even by the standards of when IS was first discovered. I can totally see why this masterpiece was featured.
Death Dungeon by Zane - 4ish minutes. Well this level is uh, "special". Why is this here?
Deja Verdigris by Ciolf - 8ish minutes. Played before; featured by Terry. This one is decent, don't have much to say about it though.
Destiny by Eric - 7ish minutes. So sick of playing people's first levels. Might have enjoyed it if it wasn't sandwiched between a billion other levels. I dunno, maybe I should be doing this slower.
Devious Dimentions - 4ish minutes. Played before; featured by Terry. Pretty much a 'collectathon', but this one is actually surprisingly a lot of fun.
Difficulty Spike by Nicholashin - Played 15 minutes, then decided to stop. God, this level is AWFUL.
Dimension A/D by Veec7 - 25ish minutes. Nice, fun, good easy/medium difficulty. Reminds me of [\].
Dimension ABCDE2 by lamourieparkinson - 20ish minutes. Actually significantly worse than the original, really inconsistent difficulty and some VERY poor rooms. Part of the wave of "look mom, I can IS too" type levels. Graphic file is missing (??).
Dimension ABCDEF by tos tur - 8ish minutes. Not sure what the connection is to the sequel. Decent vanilla gameplay but difficulty is a bit high at times.
Dimension Analog by Veec7 - 20ish minutes. Worse than A/D but still good, any level with "Info Teddy's Nightmare" as a room is fine by me.
Dimension Artificial by KostaRotaev - 10ish minutes. The smallest 20x20 map with 20 trinkets ever, probably. I dunno what to say, the room design was... fine? I mean jeez, KostaRotaev's writing is just as nonsensical in his levels as his posts.
Dimension Byte by Veec7 - 20ish minutes. Until the final level this was really good, but the overlong repetitive final level was totally unnecessary.
Four Paths by Mr_YTP - 20ish minutes. "Expert" section is a bit frustrating but this is otherwise decent. Good to see mrytp was a good level designer even when he was just starting. (Also, this should technically be later in the pack, I think...)
Dimension Colored "by pattoo1234" - WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS DOING HERE
Dimension Colour by Mr_YTP - Forgot to record my time. Played before. Arguably mrytp's best work, this level is fantastic. Seriously why the hell is pattoo's shitty imitation here.
"Thedangerzonemoded" by Andrew Taylor - 15ish minutes. This level does genuinely have some cool ideas and I enjoyed a lot of the rooms the first time playing them, but DEAR GOD DOES THIS LEVEL NEED CHECKPOINTS. Seriously, it's frustrating as SHIT without them. Also fix the title and do something about the "gimme" trinkets, probably.
Untitled Level - damn i love this one, 11/10. Seriously though you accidentally put two "A No Story Dimension"s in here and one of them is just a blank level file. Might wanna do somethin' about that.

Okay, uh, I think that's it. May or may not be doing parts 2-4 of this compilation, I'll try 'em but we'll see how far I get.

[moth 🦋]

Anything in blue is a problem with the level that Balneor should fix in a later update.

unless you mean balneor should look for alternate versions of those levels that balneor should fix, i dont think they should be editing other people's levels (especially without the original author's permission)
(yes, im aware that i used to do that myself, but the point still stands)

otherwise, wow! these reviews are short but helpful


EDIT: the fact that Small things by KostaRotaev isnt in here makes me a little mad because while it does crash the game we could all use a little SPONGE MILK in our lives